Game Developer Quality of Life Survey
Thought this might be worth reposting here,
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/188671/game_developer_qualityoflife_.php
I imagine a lot of this is unsurprising but it's nice to see statistics instead of personal anecdotes.
Some highlights:
An unsurprising conclusion:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/188671/game_developer_qualityoflife_.php
I imagine a lot of this is unsurprising but it's nice to see statistics instead of personal anecdotes.
Some highlights:
23% of developers expect layoffs after shipping their current project. Layoff expectations connect fairly strongly with job satisfaction rates, too; people who don't expect layoffs are more than twice as likely to be very satisfied with their job. But the fear of layoffs appears to be more prominent than actual layoff rates; for the sake of context, our 2011 Salary Survey respondents reported an actual layoff rate of 13%.
When it comes to devs' future in the industry, however, they are a little adamant; 89% report that they want to remain in the game industry in five years. However, the majority of these devs are on the younger end of the spectrum; 92% of devs under 35 want to stay there, compared to 83% of devs 35 or older. Also, devs are split on whether to advise a friend or family member to join the industry; 62% say yes.
Essentially, the longer your regular working schedules are, the more likely you are to work even longer hours during crunch, not less -- something to keep in mind next time you're asked to work longer hours during normal dev cycles in order to avoid crunch later on. Also, crunch cycles happen for all types of games at about the same rates; it doesn't matter whether you're making console games or social games, you're still equally likely to end up in crunch. Location doesnt correlate strongly with crunch duration or intensity.
An unsurprising conclusion:
Overall, these survey results point to a consistent pattern: Poor product quality and performance is connected to low motivation, morale, and excessively long hours. From our perspective, these statistics stress the importance of effectively managing a project's scope and workload throughout development; long, intense crunch cycles appear to be symptoms of flawed project scoping, planning, and management.